Australian politics has a 1933 moment

I've been watching politics since I was a kid in the Fraser years and like everyone else I've seen plenty of stuff-ups, misjudgments, indecencies and outrages in that time. But few left me feeling sick in the way that the Coalition supporting Pauline Hanson's "it's OK to be white" motion in the Senate yesterday did.

There is no explaining away, contextualising, justifying or dismissing this outrage by the Coalition. Caught by surprise? What -- you can't read a notice paper? Confused about how to vote? You need guidance from your party leadership on whether to vote for a motion about "anti-white racism" from Australian politics' best known racist? And in any event, Attorney-General Christian Porter only confirmed the government's support for Hanson's motion afterward on Twitter, backed by Mathias Cormann. Fair dinkum, Mathias. You're supposed to be better than this shit.

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